


8-Ceremonials

by WritestuffLee



Series: The Warrior's Heart, Volume 3, What Was Old is New Again [8]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2001-06-15
Updated: 2001-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-10 14:46:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritestuffLee/pseuds/WritestuffLee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having opted for the full ceremonials of knighthood, Obi-Wan gets something other than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Votary

Bruck was there to meet them on the landing platform when their little shuttle from the Arkania Temple touched down. Anakin bounded down the ramp first, new travel pack in one hand, excited to be back on Coruscant and that much closer to his apprenticeship, and stopped short, seeing another brown-robed figure at the foot of it. He and Bruck exchanged mutually surprised looks then both laughed.

“Hello!” Bruck said, offering a hand. “You must be Ben’s replacement. Congratulations. I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Bruck Chun.”

“Pleased to meet you, Se—er—uh—” Anakin looked him over, found his braid, grinned, “—Padawan Chun. My name’s Anakin Skywalker.”

They shook hands very formally but each wearing the trace of a smirk, sensing a kindred spirit in the other.

“You two are going to be trouble together,” Obi-Wan observed, carrying his own and Qui-Gon’s bags down the ramp. “This is a friend of mine, Ani. Don’t believe anything he tells you about me.”

“Hey! Is that the thanks I get for putting up with you all these years?”

Anakin, who didn’t know quite what to make of Bruck, or who “Ben” was, watched in confusion as this new padawan wrapped his arms around Obi-Wan and kissed him soundly, Obi-Wan returning it with the same spirit in which it was given, dropping the packs and sliding his arms tightly around Padawan Chun’s waist. Over the past several tens he’d gotten used to Master Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan kissing and hugging and touching each other, enough so that it didn’t seem strange anymore. Especially not for Master Qui-Gon, who was as mushy as his mom. But it surprised him to see Obi-Wan like this with anyone else. Usually he was so . . . stuck-up with other people. And he’d thought—

“Congratulations, Oafy,” Bruck grinned as they separated. “When’s the ceremony?”

“Thanks, B-Boy. Three days from tomorrow. All the forms have been submitted and approved. I just have to go through the rituals. I’m still getting used to the idea. . . .” He trailed off, smiled a little wistfully.

“Yeah, hard to believe. I mean, it isn’t and it is. It’s not like you weren’t ready for it. But . . .”

“Yes. But,” Obi-Wan agreed, stymied to explain any further the mixture of fear, anticipation, and excitement he felt.

“It’s always a somewhat awkward transition,” Qui-Gon remarked, standing at the foot of the ramp with his hands folded calmly in his sleeves, smiling a little, “for everyone involved. Much more so than the one from initiate to padawan, if a bit less fraught. Usually.”

Bruck looked around his lover’s shoulder, taking the tall Jedi Master in at a glance. Better than he’d expected, from Ben’s accounts, but . . . changed. A little thinner. A little greyer. A bit worn around the edges. And yet more solid, somehow; more _there._ “I’m glad to hear it. I think I’d rather take the standard trials than the trial-in-extremis. You’re looking well, Qui-Gon.”

The older Jedi inclined his head slightly. “All things considered. Thank you. It’s good to see you again, Bruck. Will you be here for Obi-Wan’s knighting?”

“Oh yeah. Barring anything last-minute from the Council, of course. Andreth and I were due for some down-time anyway. Bant’s here, and Reeft, too. And Tianna. It’ll be a good party. That is, if Ben makes it back from the Sanctum.”

“Those are just stories to scare initiates with,” Obi-Wan snorted. “Once you’ve passed the trials, there’s nothing down there to scare anyone.”

“Only what you bring with you,” Qui-Gon said quietly.

 

* * *

 

“Was it really a Sith, Ben?” Bruck asked sleepily, snuggled up tightly against his lover, one hand cupping Kenobi’s hip, thumb stroking into the hollow of the ball-and-socket. Obi-Wan combed through his hair lightly with one hand, the other interlaced with Bruck’s.

“Apparently,” he answered with equal languor, stretching under Bruck’s hands, hips arching gently against the padawan’s groin. The other young man’s cock stirred with renewed interest.

Obi-Wan felt more relaxed than he’d felt in a quarteryear. He’d gone off with Bruck after seeing Qui-Gon and Anakin settled in their quarters, and it still seemed strange to have done so without asking his master’s—his former master’s—permission. Instead, he had merely told Qui-Gon he would be out that evening and to expect him back sometime the following day. “Enjoy yourself,” was all Qui-Gon had said, looking up from his datapad and smilingly mildly.

He and Bruck had had dinner together in the refectory, catching up as they usually did after a time apart—except that there was so much more to catch up on this time, and they were interrupted every few moments by someone new coming up to congratulate him and inquire after Qui-Gon’s health. Bruck sat through the interruptions very patiently, watching Obi-Wan bask a bit in all the attention with a small, amused smile.

Afterwards, they’d headed back to Bruck’s room. Once inside, with the door closed and privacy-locked behind them, Bruck had pushed him against the wall and pinned him with his mouth. Their teeth cracked together and Obi-Wan tasted blood for a moment, and again when Bruck nipped his lip. “Missed you,” Bruck murmured, pulling back for a moment and kissing him much more gently. “Yeah, you too,” Obi-Wan agreed and pulled Bruck more tightly against him, bucking against Bruck’s superior weight, grinding their pelvises together until both of them were hot and hard. Then he turned the tables with a quick movement that left Bruck pinned in his place, face against the wall, panting, one arm behind his back.

“Knights-Elect get to be on top,” he hissed in Bruck’s ear, reaching inside his leggings and cupping Bruck’s genitals, kneading hard.

“Yes, Master,” Bruck whimpered in mock humility, rocking into Kenobi’s hands. “Tell me what you want, Master.”

“I want you to suck me,” he growled, letting go of his lover, who turned and sank to his knees gracefully, long fingers already reaching for the fastenings of Obi-Wan’s trousers. “Oh gods, Bruck, make me come. Please. It’s been so long. . . .”

His voice broke off into a moan as Bruck freed his cock and, holding him at the root, closed his hot mouth around Obi-Wan’s shaft. Kenobi’s hands fisted in Bruck’s hair as he slid down Obi-Wan’s length and back up again, sucking, tongue working over the throbbing vein on the underside, over the sensitive spot beneath the crown, pushing his foreskin back to lick over the head. He’d already begun to shake by the time Bruck began to repeat the motion and when his cock hit the back of Bruck’s throat again he came, shuddering from head to foot, hands clenching in the short white hair, hips thrusting hard, head thrown back in a guttural, tortured cry. Bruck swallowed hastily and hung on as Obi-Wan emptied himself, bracing himself against the wall above Bruck’s head.

“Oh Little Gods, B-boy, thank you,” Obi-Wan sighed, breath hitching in his chest. “I needed that.”

Bruck pulled Obi-Wan down into his arms, hands stroking up and down his sweaty back, then opening his tunics and pushing them off into a heap on the floor. “You’ve never come that fast before. Guess it has been a while,” he grinned. “Qui-Gon not up to it yet?”

“No, he wasn’t for some time, but he wants to wait, now, until I’m knighted,” Obi-Wan muttered with a trace of annoyance in his voice. “Apparently I’m neither fish nor fowl as a knight-elect and he seems to think it would be awkward somehow. I just couldn’t go into the Sanctum so wound up though.”

“You’ve got hands, you know,” Bruck smirked, rubbing his back and slowly divesting both of them of clothing.

“Not the same,” Obi-Wan murmured, nuzzling against Bruck’s neck and gently biting his earlobe.

Bruck’s arms tightened around him and he shivered. “No, it’s not. I’ve missed you, Ben. And I’ve been worried about you. When I heard what happened to Qui-Gon . . . It must have been awful. I’m glad he’s okay.”

“Thanks, love. I’m so glad I’ve got you,” he said fervently, squeezing. “Tell me what you want.”

Bruck looked at him for a moment, holding Obi-Wan’s face between his hands, thumbs gently stroking his cheeks, scanning his features until Obi-Wan wondered what he was looking for. “I’m not any different now than I was,” he said wryly.

“Yes, you are,” Bruck contradicted, thumbs gently rubbing the crease between his brows then over them to his temples.

“How?” he said, truly puzzled. He didn’t feel any different, not really.

“Just . . . I don’t know . . . older, or something. More sure of yourself, maybe. The way you just waltzed out of your quarters this afternoon. Even the way you walk is a little different. Not like you’re trying to keep up with your master any more.”

“Is it? I hadn’t noticed. Is that so bad?”

“No,” Bruck grinned. “I like you this way. Kiss me.”

Obi-Wan leaned in and pressed their mouths together, Bruck’s opening willingly under his own. “Tell me what you want,” he murmured, then went back to nibbling Bruck’s lower lip. Bruck’s hands slid down Obi-Wan’s back and came to rest on his ass, kneading bruisingly, pulling him tight. “You know what I want, Ben. You know what I like,” he answered when he could free his mouth. “Let’s take this to bed. I spend enough time on my knees on hard floors.”

They moved apart briefly, and Obi-Wan lay back on the soft cotton mattress, the rush mats beneath rustling under his weight. Bruck followed, snagging a bottle of oil from the chest beside the bed. Obi-Wan pulled Bruck down against him, running hard, calloused hands over the smooth skin of Bruck’s shoulders and back, kissing him slowly and deeply, running his tongue against Bruck’s, along his palate, savoring. By the time they broke apart again, gasping, long minutes had passed and Bruck was whining deep in his throat. “Open me up, B-Boy. I want you inside,” Obi-Wan whispered.

“Roll over,” Bruck growled, nipping along his neck and shoulder.

Obi-Wan turned in his arms, onto his side, drawing one leg up. One of Bruck’s arms snaked over his shoulder, down his chest, caressing, finding one nipple and teasing it to tingling hardness. The other hand, already slick with oil, ran over one muscular cheek, fingers sliding into the crevice between and finding the tight, puckered muscle, stroking over it. Obi-Wan pushed back into him, wanting. “Don’t tease, B-boy. Just do it,” and Bruck pushed two slick fingers into him, stroking along his prostate. Obi-Wan shuddered, engulfed in a sudden wash of fire, moaning and arching. Bruck’s fingers worked inside him and he kissed and bit lightly along Obi-Wan’s neck and shoulder, the other hand pinching one nipple.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes, panting, feeling Bruck’s fingers inside him and the tension in his body, a tension that had been accumulating for a quarteryear during Qui-Gon’s recovery, one that had been only briefly dissipated by his recent orgasm. It wasn’t just sexual tension, but a great deal of anxiety he’d been unable to work off or release into the Force and it was a relief to channel it into this kind of action and let Bruck help him burn it off in the heat of sex. His cock filled and arched again and he felt the urge to move.

“Do it, love, do it. Fuck me now.”

“I’ll hurt you—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Obi-Wan gasped. “You know how I like it. C’mon, do it! Please, oh gods, Bruck, c’mon c’mon c’mon—”

“Shhhh,” Bruck hushed him and then, slicking his cock, pushed inside, hand on Obi-Wan’s belly, holding him, and it was so good to be that full and feel Bruck’s skin sliding along his own, and the heat and tension in his muscles building, building and Bruck rocking into him, deeper each time, stroking over his prostate. And now they were both breathing hard, Bruck’s hand stroking his cock, and he knew he was going to come again quickly. Bruck seemed to know it too, and gently teased his sac lower and looser, stopping and then holding himself still, trembling a little.

“Bruck . . .” he whined. “Gods Bruck, please—”

“Hush, Ben. I’ll take care of you. Let’s make it last.”

“You bastard,” Obi-Wan snarled, frantic and trembling. “This is just payback for all the times I’ve done this to you.”

“Would I do that to you?” Bruck murmured in amusement, rubbing his hip.

“Yes! C’mon! Fuck me!”

And Bruck obliged, thrusting into him hard, Obi-Wan’s cock in his hot fist and they were moving together in a smooth, fast counterpoint, Obi-Wan pushing into Bruck’s hand, and rocking back onto the heavy cock inside him, taking in as much as Bruck could give him. “Let go, Ben,” Bruck gasped. “Come for me.” And that was all it took. Obi-Wan arched sharply into Bruck’s hand, coming in a quick jet, the cry torn from him as tortured as his first.

Something welled up in him then that he couldn’t really identify except that it was wound up in all he’d been through in the last quarteryear. There was fear in it and pain, and all the anxiousness for Qui-Gon he’d been feeling, and there was also a deep sense of relief, as well as one of having been touched by something he could only call grace in surviving it all with the people he loved intact. He squeezed his eyes shut against the tears rising in them, but couldn’t stop them. Bruck was still moving inside him, but he hardly felt it, hardly knew when Bruck held himself still and tight against him and came hard, panting and moaning, hardly felt it when Bruck relaxed against him with a deep sigh, cock softening inside him. And it took Bruck a moment to realize his partner was still shaking.

“Hey—” he said, sounding a little alarmed as Obi-Wan folded his arms across himself and bent over, inhaling sharply as though he’d been punched. Bruck folded strong arms around him gently, holding him as though his ribs were glass, rubbing his cheek against Obi-Wan’s. “It’s all right, Ben. Let it out. Let it out.” Obi-Wan tried to exhale and found he could only inhale in short hitching breaths until his lungs were so full they ached. Bruck squeezed him, whispered, “Breathe, idiot,” in his ear and kissed the back of his neck.

All that captive air came out in a sound he didn’t expect, something keening and high, and Bruck began to rock him. “It’s all right, it’s all right. Let it out. Let it out,” he murmured into Obi-Wan’s ear.

He calmed gradually, and Bruck’s cock slipped from him, leaving him sore and sated and languorous, wrapped in his lover’s arms.

“Sorry,” he said, nestling against the warm, sticky body at his back.

“For what?”

“Losing it like that. I’m not usually—”

“Yeah, yeah, Obi-Wan Always-in-Control Kenobi,” Bruck replied, gently mocking. “I can’t call you Perfect Padawan anymore, can I? Maybe you can stop being it, too. Want to tell me about it? I’ve only heard the official version, and you know how much those leave out. Was it really a Sith, Ben?”

“Apparently. I can’t think of anything else it could have been.” He started with the bare physical description of the thing he’d fought and, as Bruck had known he would, found himself telling all of it, from the moment they’d arrived on the Nemoidian flagship, as Bruck pulled up the blankets and ran his hands gently over Obi-Wan’s skin. He listened quietly, for the most part, only a few events eliciting comments.

“Qui-Gon said that right in front of the Council? Before he’d told you? I can’t believe he’d do that to you,” Bruck seemed more outraged over his master’s behavior with Anakin than Obi-Wan was.

“I couldn’t either. Especially when he’d just got done telling me, ‘you have much to learn about the Living Force, Padawan,’” Obi-Wan intoned in a more than fair imitation of Qui-Gon’s voice. He expected Bruck to laugh and was surprised to see a wince instead.

“That must have hurt.”

He opened his mouth to say one thing and heard another come out. “Yes, it did,” he heard himself say in a subdued voice.

“What got into him?”

“I don’t know, it’s hard to tell with Qui sometimes. He comes to the Force from such a different place than I do that sometimes I think I don’t understand him at all. I certainly don’t understand his obsession with this boy. He needs to be trained, obviously, and better Jedi trained than Sith, but—”

“You don’t think he’s the Chosen One either.”

“I don’t know. He’s incredibly powerful in the Force. Who’s to say?” Obi-Wan shrugged.

“Still, it’s no excuse to treat you like that, Ben, like you’re something he can just throw away when he feels like it. Little Gods, you’re lovers!”

“Look, it’s all right—”

“No, it’s not. Not unless he’s apologized.”

“We’ve worked it out. Drop it.”

Bruck had his mouth open to argue and shut it again at Obi-Wan’s tone. But something in his face closed down and he pulled away, sitting up with his back to Obi-Wan.

“It’s not the same, Bruck. It’s not like what was done to you. He was right. I was ready.”

“You must have been,” he muttered, “you kept the bastard alive.”

Obi-Wan sat up, angry now. “Is that it? Were you thinking you’d have me all to yourself now? Is that the problem?”

Bruck said nothing, sitting with his shoulders hunched. Obi-Wan watched him, finding his anger dissipating with each moment. “Let’s not fuck this up, Bruck,” he said finally. “Not now. You’re too important to me. I’m sorry. That was cruel and you didn’t deserve it.” He laid his hand on Bruck’s back, feeling muscles and spine stiffen beneath it, and gently pushed at their lover’s bond. There was some resistance along it, but after a moment, Bruck’s shields yielded to the wash of love he sent down it. Obi-Wan drew him back down and held him.

“I did deserve it,” he said quietly after a while, lying against Obi-Wan.

“No, love. I know it’s not easy for you, sharing me with Qui. If it’s any consolation, it’s not very easy being shared, either. It’s hard not to bring my relationship with Qui here.”

“And the other way around?” Bruck asked a little sourly.

“That’s easier. I don’t have the problems with you that I do with Qui.”

Bruck propped himself up on one elbow and looked and Obi-Wan in puzzlement. “What problems?”

Obi-Wan stroked a hand down Bruck’s chest. “Our relationship is different. With you, I can say and do anything—be myself. With Qui . . . no matter what, I’m his padawan. Even if I weren’t, the age difference between us makes it so. With him, I’m always trying to be older than I am. He’s always going to be my master, no matter what, the same way Yoda’s always his master. You’ve seen the two of them together.”

“Yeah, but Qui doesn’t exactly act like the Perfect Padawan you do. I’ve heard him call Master Yoda a ‘little green troll’ to his face more than once.”

Obi-Wan smiled. “No, he’s not exactly deference incarnate, is he? I wonder sometimes if that isn’t why he’s so irascible with Yoda and the Council though. Here’s his master, older than dirt, been a Jedi since there were any, sitting on the Council he’s got to report to all the time—how would you ever establish yourself in his eyes when you’ve been his padawan, short of open rebellion?”

Bruck was silent for a moment, considering. “Never thought of it that way. You might be right. What about you and Qui-Gon?”

“He’ll be busy training Anakin now, so I suppose I’ll be on my own anyway. That should help. We’ll have to see. In the meanwhile,” Obi-Wan murmured, flicking the little gold barbell piercing Bruck’s nipple, “I have a quarteryear of celibacy to make up for before I start my vigil. Want to help?”

Bruck grinned wickedly and dived in for a kiss.


	2. Vigil

 

He and Bruck spent his first night home making love into the early morning hours before dropping into an exhausted and sated sleep. He was truly touched when Bruck brought him breakfast in bed the next morning. They sat together in Bruck’s room in the late morning sun, feeding each other slices of fruit at a leisurely pace, touching casually, kissing occasionally, then Bruck went on his way to classes and practice, leaving Obi-Wan to tidy up and take care of his own last minute affairs.

That took very little time. All the forms had been filed from Arkania, all the required permissions and signatures received and recorded. Normally, during this in-between period, the new knight-elect would be moving into his or her own quarters, but Obi-Wan had no intentions of going anywhere else. So his last minute chores consisted of picking up a set of whites from stores and notifying the Kirtan of his schedule.

Then began a short period of being feted and spoiled. Being the first in his year to win his knighthood seemed to give him a special distinction somehow, although none of his friends seemed particularly surprised by that fact. Obi-Wan found their attention a strange experience but was determined to enjoy his friends’ generosity. This was something he had been working for all his life and he realized this was one of the last opportunities he would have to be this self-indulgent. That too was a kind of novel attitude; he suspected he had Bruck to thank for it, as well as Qui-Gon.

All his friends resident in Temple took him out that evening for dinner and clubbing afterward and made sure he was positively blind and staggering by the time he came home. Obi-Wan didn’t remember any of them being quite so intent on a good time, or feeling quite the sense of relief in their abandon as he did that night. It was almost as though his success had made their own more of a reality, or at least a distinct possibility. He was not allowed to pay for anything, and he did not remember being delivered home into Qui-Gon’s tender care, or being put to bed as he had not been since the last time he’d been very ill.

He woke quite late the next morning, dry-mouthed and headachy, the metallic after-reek of inhalants making his mouth taste like a hangar floor. Qui-Gon also brought him breakfast, or in this case, brunch in bed and helped him clear the last of the intoxicants from his system, then delivered another surprise: his family was arriving early that afternoon.

Over the years, they had stayed in quite close contact with their Jedi son, which was fairly unusual. Once given up to the temple, further contact with children was usually discouraged. But House Kenobi was one of Dannora’s ruling families and had had Jedi in it for several millennia. Unlike the other ruling houses, they were also great supporters of the Order, in both theory and practice; the Order’s coffers received a great deal of “support” from House Kenobi, not the least of which was the interest from the trust that had been established several millennia before which each successive House Kenobi Jedi was free to draw on without restriction at his knighting. The Council had always considered it politic to allow House Kenobi’s members as much access to their children as was feasible.

In truth, that was very little, comparatively. Obi-Wan saw them perhaps once or twice a year, usually on the Dannoran holidays, though they sent messages back and forth often. On the eve of his twenty-first birthday he had gone home for four tendays for his repudiation ceremony in which he’d renounced his claim to the House Kenobi fortunes and had the trust settled on him in a limited way. The ceremony had been short and solemn, but the days leading up to it had been quite happy and enjoyable, though tempered with disappointment at Qui-Gon’s absence. Obi-Wan found this extended period with his family delightful and the feeling seemed mutual.

“So they’ll finally get to meet you,” he beamed, sipping the last of his tea. One of his hands curled possessively around Qui-Gon’s thigh. His soon-to-be-former master sat beside him, propped against the bed’s headboard from where he had watched Obi-Wan devour his breakfast after his night of hard play. “I’m so glad, Qui. They wanted to know all about you when I was there for the repudiation, and Mother’s always asking after you.”

“I believe you’re more pleased that we’ll finally meet than you are about them attending your knighting ceremony.”

“I’m pleased about both, of course, but I’ve wanted them to meet you for so long, and with circumstances as they are, well,” Obi-Wan trailed off. It was totally ridiculous that Qui-Gon’s family had disowned him when he became a Jedi and that the respective ranks of their houses—Qui-Gon’s of only merchant rank—made it so awkward that they were master and apprentice. Obi-Wan had never understood why Qui-Gon’s house should be so mortified by having its son be master to a child of a ruling house. No one in House Kenobi found that the least bit insulting.

“Best not to risk a possible insult. My diplomat’s instincts tell me it wouldn’t be wise. So I confess I’ve been hoping your family would come out for your knighting. It gives us the perfect opportunity to meet. Your mother asked me to make dinner reservations for us. She and your father want to take us out.”

“And you’re not nervous about meeting the in-laws?”

“No, I’m quite looking forward to seeing what kind of people gave birth to such a nine-day-wonder as you.”

“Nine day wonder?” Obi-Wan protested.

 Qui-Gon ticked the list off on his fingers. “First padawan in your year to pass your trials. First in almost forty years to gain your knighthood in battle. First in nearly four millennia to win it beating a Sith—”

“I should think I’d get a good deal more than nine days out of that!” Obi-Wan insisted in mock outrage.

“So you should, love,” Qui-Gon agreed, leaning over and kissing his temple. “I’m incredibly proud of you. And I feel the Force has truly given me a tremendous gift in you. I shall endeavor to assure ‘the in-laws’ as you call them, of that fact.”

 

That evening, Obi-Wan found himself at a large table in a small quiet restaurant with his mother, father, younger brother, his brother’s fiancé, and—in this context—his own mate. Watching them all interact made him absurdly happy and a little melancholy that Qui-Gon’s own family had never allowed this.

Lady Ting Minglong Kenobi, small and delicate and as red-haired as her eldest son, was the heiress of House Kenobi. She welcomed Qui-Gon into her family without hesitation, dismissing the idea that it might be mildly embarrassing for there to be a liaison between their houses.

“What nonsense that all is!” she proclaimed, standing on tip-toe to kiss Qui-Gon’s cheek. He had to bend over quite a bit to accommodate her. “In this day and age. House This! House That! Ridiculous attitude and so tasteless. Now, you must call me Ting, Qui-Gon. Everyone else in the family does, except the children, of course. Even Beru. Though they’re getting too old to do so in public any more, I should think. And I don’t suppose calling me ‘mother’ would really work in your case, would it?”

Qui-Gon smiled. “No one would ever suspect you of having a son as old as I, Ting.”

“Nor as . . . tall,” Obi-Wan added mischievously. Even Owen, the tallest of them, who barely overshot Obi-Wan, found that amusing.

Anshan-Wen Lars who was a neat blond man not much shorter—or younger—than Qui-Gon himself, let his wife and sons rattle on during dinner, only occasionally sending a zinger into the conversational pool to show he’d been observing quite acutely. Owen was as quiet as he, and currently had eyes only for his fiancé, Beru, and she, though young, was quite sweet and held her own surprisingly well with the crowd. Owen had seemed genuinely impressed with Obi-Wan’s accomplishment but Beru’s charms were apparently irresistible. Beru seemed a little embarrassed by that fact, but Obi-Wan just found it amusing.

Dressed in his most formal and flattering civilian clothes, as was Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon had been at his most handsome and charming, and openly affectionate with Obi-Wan in a way he hadn’t been before in public, touching him discreetly through the evening: a hand on his elbow, a touch to his hand as his name was mentioned, fingers smoothing his braid when they stood to leave. The affection didn’t go unnoticed, as was no doubt the intention. Obi-Wan wasn’t certain whether it amused him to see Qui-Gon actively reassuring his parents that he was, indeed, cherished and loved as a mate, or annoyed him that Qui-Gon was acting for their benefit.

Then again, if the man were merely acting, he kept it up consistently throughout the evening, even on the way home from his family’s hotel suite where they’d gone for drinks afterwards. In the cab on the way home, he had actually slipped his arm around Obi-Wan shoulders as they settled back. Obi-Wan snuggled against him contentedly, liking this new public closeness a great deal. Once they were inside the Temple however, Qui-Gon retreated to his usual masterly distance.

Obi-Wan watched the distance between them widen until it was a somewhat painful physical wedge, Qui-Gon two steps ahead of him out of habit, and let it go on until they were in their quarters. Once inside, he pulled Qui-Gon into a warm embrace and kissed him. “Did you enjoy yourself tonight?”

“Very much. Your family is a delight, especially your mother. I quite enjoyed my conversation with your father, as well. He’s a keen observer of politics. And I can see where your dry sense of humor came from. And you?”

“Until this last bit in temple when you reverted to being Master Qui-Gon Jinn,” he said bluntly. “I was very much enjoying your earlier public displays of affection—unless they were just an effort for my parents.”

Qui-Gon looked horrified. “I was making an effort, yes,” he admitted, “but I didn’t intend to turn it off once we were here. Please forgive me, love. I’m still getting used to the idea that in a little more than a day, everything will be quite different for us.”

“Is that what you want, Qui? For everything to be different?”

He’d been enveloped in a fierce, tight embrace then. “Not everything,” his master said against the top of his head. “Just the need for so much restraint here in our own home. I’m very much looking forward to not being your master anymore, and just being your partner, your lover.”

“So am I,” he murmured, returning the hug and tilting his face up to be kissed, thoroughly and passionately.

“Two more nights,” Qui-Gon murmured, eyes gleaming, when they pulled themselves apart again.

Obi-Wan felt his own heart pounding and knew Qui-Gon’s was as well. He wanted nothing more than to take the man to bed and spend the night as he had with Bruck. “Two more,” he agreed reluctantly.

Unsurprisingly, it was more difficult to share their bed chastely that night than it had been the night before, and it was some hours before he dropped off to sleep.

 

Regardless, he was up early the next morning, retrieving his fitted whites from the quartermaster, and then heading off to his favorite spot in the meditation gardens. There, he settled on his rump, folded his legs, and opened himself to the Force in preparation for his night in the Sanctum.

In this place, this garden, Obi-Wan felt the Force flow through him like a gentle stream, carrying away his fears and uncertainties. He was a little surprised at how much rose to the surface during the course of the day. He realized, for instance, that he had known for some time before Qui-Gon had told him so abruptly in front of the Council that he’d been ready for his knighting, and wondered now why his master had not put him forward for his trials earlier. He suspected that Qui-Gon would only smile mysteriously if asked. Perhaps when he had a padawan of his own it would make more sense.

Or perhaps Qui-Gon had only been reluctant to let him go. But no, he discarded that thought as highly improbable and unworthy. Qui-Gon had never been a selfish man, had never done anything to hold him back except when he truly wasn’t ready, and occasionally not then, so he could learn patience and self-knowledge the hard way. While far from perfect, intentional obstruction was not one of his master’s faults. If anything, Qui-Gon had pushed his latest apprentice hard toward his knighting. Though he had no gift for prescience, it seemed as though Qui-Gon had known Obi-Wan’s trials lay in their mission to Naboo, not in the confines of the Temple. Obi-Wan smiled then. Of course he had. The Council had. Yoda had, just as he had known that Xanatos’s trials had lain in his return to his homeworld.

Satisfied that one more confusing circumstance had been adequately explained, Obi-Wan released the last of his anxiety and let the Force fill him completely until he felt luminous and weightless, immersed in it, outside of time and physicality, and deeply at peace.

When he opened his eyes again, late afternoon sun filled the tiny garden and the fountain beside him was burbling gently rather than shooting high into the air as it did during the day to catch the sunlight and break it into its brilliant constituent colors. Obi-Wan’s own heart echoed that calm and pleasant sound, filling him with a quiet contentment. Time to go. Qui-Gon—and the Kirtan—were waiting.

 

He was met inside the door first by Anakin, who was fairly vibrating with curiosity and just as obviously holding it in check, and by a gently smiling Qui-Gon, who took his sienna-colored robe from him and hung it for the last time from its peg beside his own darker one. After his knighting it would be returned to stores for recycling, like the rest of his padawan clothing, and eventually garb some other padawan; tomorrow, Obi-Wan would be allowed to choose his own cloak and tunics as was every knight’s and master’s right. He toed off his own boots—those he would keep—and set them beside his master’s.

Eyes sparkling, Qui-Gon ushered him into the fresher, turned him gently, and began to disrobe him. It was very different from other times Qui-Gon had stripped him of his clothing. While there was a sense of anticipation in his touch, there was nothing sexual at all, just a great tenderness. Obi-Wan shivered a little anyway, feeling Qui-Gon’s hands on him for the first time in too long.

Qui-Gon quirked his eyebrows. “So little control, My Knight?” he murmured, unwinding Obi-Wan’s braid and loosening his cauda.

“Not your knight yet, My Master. Not soon enough,” Obi-Wan replied, voice gone husky.

“Patience, Padawan,” his master said mildly. “It’s best to go to the Sanctum with as little anxiety as possible, regardless of what kind.”

“Yes, Master,” Obi-Wan acknowledged, taking a deep breath and stilling his mind and heart, if not necessarily his body.

“Into the bath with you. No, stand up.” From a shallow copper basin, Qui-Gon poured warm water over him as he stood in their bath, and gently began to soap him down. Again it was very different from any other time they had bathed together or washed each other. There was something not exactly impersonal but rather ritualistic about Qui-Gon’s motions, as though he were attending to some kind of votive statue rather than his lover or padawan.

“I didn’t know this was part of the process,” Obi-Wan murmured, letting himself be gently manipulated.

“It isn’t, always. But sometimes,” Qui-Gon explained, kneeling to wash his apprentice’s feet, looking up at him with such obvious pride and love that it caught in Obi-Wan’s throat, “it is the master’s pleasure to serve as well. It is only a small thing to make sure that you should go on your way with a clean body as well as the clean heart and soul that I know you possess.”

Obi-Wan could find nothing to say but, “Thank you, My Master,” feeling deeply touched at Qui-Gon’s desire to do this for him. He doubted somehow that this was something he had done for his first padawan, Ayana, and wondered if it would have been done for Xanatos, had circumstances been different. Fruitless questions, he supposed, and pushed them aside to concentrate on the moment, and the gift Qui-Gon offered him.

After Qui-Gon washed his hair and shaved him, he was thoroughly and gently dried and helped into new underclothes, and then the white tunics and sash, followed by the white trousers he had gotten from stores that morning. Like young initiates, he wore no stola and only a thin belt, barely heavy enough to support his saber; unlike them, his feet were bare. The clothing had that slight stiffness new tunics always did and the smell of starch. The creases were still sharp and the fabric blindingly white. More than anything, it reminded him that he was leaving the comfort of his old life and beginning a new one.

Qui-Gon bound up his cauda, folding the end of it under and securing it so it was a short bob rather than a tail now, and then reverently began to plait his braid for the last time, slipping white beads into it and tying it off with white ties. As a final gesture, he clipped Obi-Wan’s saber to his belt.

When he was dressed, Qui-Gon stood back and looked him up and down, less an inspection than as though committing the image to memory. He seemed, for once, at a loss for words, and merely touched Obi-Wan’s face, smiling gently in that infuriating way of his. Obi-Wan found it was something he cherished tonight, for he would never again see it from this perspective.

Finally, he let his master slide his new white cloak around his shoulders before he turned to meet Qui-Gon’s gaze again. The older man leaned forward and kissed his forehead tenderly. “May the Force be with you, My Padawan. As my love will be.”

“Thank you, My Master,” Obi-Wan replied with quiet dignity, accepting the chaste kiss but proffering none of his own. “Until morning.”

“Until the morn,” Qui-Gon acknowledged, cupping his face for a moment then letting him go.

Obi-Wan pulled the cloak’s hood around him and left their quarters.

 

* * *

 

In Coruscant’s great Jedi Temple, those who went hooded went invisibly, neither spoken to nor in any way acknowledged. The hood was a sign to others that its wearer desired no interactions with those in the hallways, for whatever reasons. Knights wore the cowl in walking meditation, in mourning, in troubled or unsettled moods, in exhaustion, to avoid the burden of speaking to all and sundry when returning from a mission or embarking on one. One also wore the hood on particular errands during which one could not be disturbed. Obi-Wan wore it this night as a sign of his impending vigil.

He walked through the long-familiar halls of the Temple, eyes fixed firmly on the floor in front of him, senses stretching out just wide enough to avoid walls and other pedestrians. Occasinally, he felt a light touch on his sleeve or his back and knew it was another padawan recognizing his state and errand and touching his cloak for luck, but that was the extent of his interactions. Others in the lift gave him wide berth in his whites and he was alone in it when it reached the lowest level but one of the Temple. He stepped out and made his way down a long and ancient stone-lined corridor that ran like an axis from the East and West Gates and led to the heart of the Temple Spire, meeting where a floor-to-ceiling portal of some dark metal was set in the north wall.

The doors were buffed to a sheen like black glass in which was reflected only the image of those who stood before them. They had no obvious mechanism for opening, but an old man was waiting beside them, leaning on a cane, regarding Obi-Wan’s approach with a kind smile. This was the _Kirtan_ who kept the Hall of the Heroes and its Sanctum, a Jedi Master of great powers and wisdom, whose title had once meant “singer”—a fact subject to much study and debate regarding its deeper meaning. The true definition had been long lost in Jedi history, and the Kirtan was now simply the Hall’s guardian, curator, and acolyte, guide to Knights-Elect and Pilgrim Jedi, Keeper of the Returning. Qui-Gon’s padawan lifted back his hood and tucked his hands into his sleeves again, waiting patiently to be recognized.

“Who comes here?” the old Jedi said at last.

“Ben-Zhao Lars of Dannora, Senior Padawan to Master Qui-Gon Jinn, the ninetieth son of my House to bear the name of venerable Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

“What business have you here?”

“I wish to enter the Hall of the Heroes for my vigil, Kirtan,” Obi-Wan said quietly.

“What do you seek, Padawan?” the doorkeeper asked.

“I seek the past that I may learn to serve the present and shape the future, Kirtan.

“By what authority do you seek entrance, Padawan?”

“By the will of the Force and by sanction of the High Council of the Mother Temple of the Order of Jedi Knights, Kirtan.”

“Only the proven may enter here, Padawan.”

“I have passed my Trials, Kirtan.”

The keeper regarded him with bright eyes, amusement lurking in them. “Know it well, I do,” he said quietly. “Long has it been since one such as you passed these doors, Padawan. Enter now and take only what you need.”

Obi-Wan stopped short for a moment, pondering the keeper’s words, wondering what he meant. He remembered Qui-Gon’s subtle warning at the landing pad, and decided to divest himself of his saber and his cloak, handing them to the Kirtan who smiled and nodded as though he had made a wise choice—something he found strangely ominous.

The flagstones at this level were worn smooth and were cold beneath his bare feet, as was the air here. They were hundreds of meters below the airy heights of their quarters, in some of the oldest levels of Coruscant, and the oldest regularly used level of the Temple. Obi-Wan shivered and drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly and trying not to anticipate what lay beyond these doors. All his life would change once he entered here. _Live in the moment,_ he reminded himself.

The Kirtan closed his eyes and gestured for him to approach the doors, which remained closed. Obi-Wan watched his own reflection approaching as he neared the mirror-like portals and raised his hand to meet it palm to palm. The door thrummed beneath his touch, as though there were a drum within, and it took him a moment to realize it matched his heartbeat. At that instant, the doors swung inward silently on their mechanisms, yawning wide to show a blackness that slowly resolved itself into a plasteel landing and stairs sweeping down the inside of a seemingly bottomless cylinder. Obi-Wan drew another deep breath, trying to calm his suddenly pounding heart, and stepped through the portals.

“May the Force be with you, Padawan,” the Kirtan Eshawa murmured and closed the great doors behind him.

 

There was no light. The blackness lay like velvet around him, heavy and warm, wrapping around him like a comforting blanket, blinding but not frightening. _Darkness is only the absence of light,_ he repeated to himself. There was certainly nothing of the Dark Side here. Even in the absence of radiation in wavelengths he could see, this was a place of the Light. Warmth and goodness and peace flowed around him like a gentle wind. For a moment he heard the ancient echoes of singing and laughter.

He could, theoretically, make the entire journey downward in darkness, not having to walk the handrailless stairs at all. Some padawans, he supposed, did just that, choosing to see their way with the Force, or forgoing the stairs entirely and levitating to the bottom of the stairwell.

Obi-Wan wanted to see the history around him as he descended. He was going back in time with each turn of the stairs and it felt important to remind himself of all those who had gone before him. With his knighting, he was becoming part of a long and glorious lineage, and would indeed be the ninetieth Jedi of his own House. Twenty thousand years of history lined the walls and lay at the foot of this staircase, a history he would someday be joining himself. It seemed necessary that he experience it with all his senses, if for no other reason than to remember it better and thus find his own place in it.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment. When he opened them again, a soft blue glow surrounded him, faintly lighting the walls and steps beneath his feet. At this level, there was little to see, only the prosaic permacrete and plasteel construction of necessity. He started downward.

 

* * *

 

“Master Qui-Gon?”

“Yes, Ani?” Qui-Gon looked up from his datapad into his new almost-apprentice’s blue eyes. He sensed the boy’s puzzlement and an ordinary curiosity tinged with worry.

“Where’s Obi-Wan going? Will he really be gone all night?”

“Yes, Ani, he will. He’s gone to the Sanctum in the Hall of the Heroes for his Vigil.” Even Anakin could hear the capital letters in Qui-Gon’s explanation. This was obviously something very important to Jedi. “It’s what every knight-elect does before he is officially raised to the level of Jedi Knight, if at all possible.”

“What’s the Hall of the Heroes? Where is it?”

“Did you look it up?”

Anakin grinned, declining to be embarrassed about his lack of research. “You’ve told me to ask questions when I don’t understand something, Master.”

“Yes, Padawan, so I have,” Qui-Gon acknowledged. Unlike Obi-Wan, Anakin was not intellectually hungry, though he was a very bright child. His interests and focus had been practical, focused on the physical and mechanical and sometimes on sheer survival, for most of his life and he had little acquaintance with or use for other types of knowledge. Qui-Gon despaired a little of changing that at this late date. “But there are other paths to knowledge than asking questions. It’s best to use them when having the answer is not immediately imperative. Why don’t you do a little research and tell me what you find out?”

“Well, I thought it was worth a try, Master,” Anakin grinned.

Qui-Gon ruffled the boy’s hair. “So have other apprentices before you, Ani.”

 

* * *

 

Many turns of the staircase later, the first of the artworks appeared, and Obi-Wan wondered why the contemporary levels had nothing to indicate the present era’s deeds. He felt the change in the wall before he saw it, and brought up the intensity of the Forcelight to see better what his fingers were feeling.

There were reliefs here, and what he’d first felt beneath his fingers was the rough seam between old levels and new. He couldn’t guess how old it was, though he knew a temple of some kind had been standing on this spot for nearly as long as there had been Jedi, long before Coruscant had sprung up around it, when the world had still been green and half-covered with oceans. Obi-Wan examined them with his fingers first, touch taking in what his eyes couldn’t tell him in the dim light.

This was some kind of cool stone and something told him it had been poured and shaped, not carved, but not poured as plascrete or ferrocrete was. This was true rock, not some amalgam. It had been heated and poured as lava into some kind of mold and fitted to the wall. The builders of the next generation of the temple had seen fit to leave the seams between old and new chiseled and rough, as though making a break with the past. And perhaps they had. This age seemed to have no heroes. No names or likenesses had been added to the Hall of the Heroes in Obi-Wan’s lifetime—nor, he suspected, in Master Yoda’s. The realization saddened him, somehow.

But here were heroes, from more than a millennium past, their figures in bas relief in the stone, sitting here in the exile of darkness where they were seen only by Knights-Elect and Pilgrim Jedi, by the High Council in its annual Procession to the Sanctum, and far more rarely by all the Temple’s inhabitants when a new name and likeness were added. These first were heroes of the Kanz conflict in which the Jedi had freed millions of Lorrdians from slavery. Some of the names were familiar from Obi-Wan’s own studies but it was compelling to see their likenesses frozen in stone at the moments that gave their names honor.

He wound his way slowly downward, hand passing over the forms of every species known in the galaxy, their names and deeds recorded in stone and metal, fresco and mosaic, in the permanence of the material as their spirits resided in the Force. Nomi Sunrider, Arca Jeth, Odan-Urr, so many others. Not all were warriors, he noted. Some were statesmen, negotiators like his own master, strategists, engineers, geologists, healers, explorers, scientists, linguists, philosophers, pilots, teachers, even librarians. Some were mystics, many were Adepts, some renowned for their knowledge and wisdom more than any acts. Not all had paid for their heroism with their lives. Interspersed among them were musicians and artists, shown with their instruments or tools, holding books or scrolls or other works of art. There were heroes of every conflict he had ever studied, and of some he had never heard of, battles so small they affected only one planet or even one nation, and yet had involved a Jedi of extraordinary courage or ability.

He was surprised to find that here too were not just heroes but villains as well—several turns of the stairs were given over to fallen Jedi, rogues, times when the Order seemed steeped in war and bloodshed, and the ever-present Sith, who were so often regarded as merely the negative image of the Jedi. Only in treading this path did Obi-Wan come to realize how much of the Order’s history was bound up with the Sith, as though they measured themselves against one another. He knew the philosophies regarding the Dark Side had shifted back and forth a number of times during the Order’s history. Some had thought it just another aspect of the Force, dark only in the way it was used. Some thought it a separate form of energy most easily accessed through the darker emotions. Some thought the Jedi and Sith two sides of the same coin—where there was one, the other must be as well, in equal numbers. Throughout the history recorded here, Sith and Jedi waxed and waned togther, one ascendant or the other, in what could almost be seen as a cycle. Obi-Wan found that thought disturbing as well. He wondered if that explained the barrenness of the contemporary portions of the stairwell.

Heart heavier than it had been, he continued on and was startled to find his own name on the wall a good way farther down the stairs.

###  _Obi-Wan Kenobi._  
Scion of House Kenobi, Dannora,  
Seer, mystic, scholar, warrior.  
Master to Sakiri Diros and Lisanda Redelion.  
Defender of the Republic and the Jedi during the Great Schism.  
Martyred in the Battle of Korriban.

###  _His ashes are interred here._

Obi-Wan—feeling much more like Ben-Zhao suddenly—sat down on the steps slowly. _Martyred_. It was not a word the Jedi used lightly. He knew the story from his own family history, but it had never been told quite that way. That he had been a hero, Ben had always known. Why else would each male Jedi in his House carry his name?

He touched the cool metallic relief with trembling fingers. These were not larger-than-life likenesses and this Obi-Wan had been only a little taller than he in life, if this were an accurate portrait. Nearly 10,000 years separated them, but Ben imagined he could see the familial similarities, though the man wore a great drooping mustache tied off like Ben’s padawan braid with beads, and his hair was pulled back in a thick and elaborately folded topknot. There had been no lightsabers then, and he stood with one hand on a canted hip—a pose that felt quite familiar—the other holding not a weapon but a scroll, the words on it in a Basic so old it was almost unintelligible:

_And in the time of greatest_  
despair there shall come a savior,  
and he shall be known as:  
THE SON OF THE SUNS.

The words jolted through Ben like an electric shock. This was part of the Chosen One prophecy. Why was _his_ ancestor holding _that_ scroll? Was this what he had been martyred for? He looked up at the inscription again. _Seer, mystic, scholar . . ._ Outlining the words was a fine seam and Ben realized this was where his ancestor’s ashes were interred, right here in this wall, behind the record of his life.

That this Obi-Wan had fought Sith on their own territory he had already known, but no one had ever mentioned precisely how he died. It seemed a strange and unlikely omission, suddenly. And regardless of his place here, this Obi-Wan had not faded into the Force at his death. That seemed odd, too.

On his home planet, people still venerated their ancestors, prayed to them, asked them for guidance, left offerings at little shrines for them. Dannora had more than the usual number of Force-sensitives in its population, which had probably only encouraged the practice. Ben felt a touch of that impulse now. If his ancestor had not immediately joined the Force in death, perhaps there was still some part of him watching over his descendant.

He stood up again, feeling a little stunned yet, and looked around him, stretching out with the Force to the end of the staircase. He was more than halfway down. And all around him were other heroes of the Sith Wars, all martyred. This was a deeply disturbing period in Jedi history. So many lives lost, so much evil, so many of the Light gone over to the Dark and then extinguished. And at least one member of his family had had a great role in it. Obi-Wan would do his best to honor that sacrifice and greatness.

The rest of the journey was much less dramatic. The earliest periods of Jedi history had been peaceable, when the Order had consisted of theologians and philosophers. Musicians and singers appeared more often in the mosaics and faded frescoes. Indeed, the final image he encountered—the first of those honored in the Hall of the Heroes, was a plump young woman with her head thrown back and mouth open in joyful song, accompanied on some kind of stringed instrument Obi-Wan had never seen, played by a Duro. The inscription was brief and unhelpful. _Lenanlli Fastel, First Kirtan. Duramph Molo, Songmaster._

At the bottom of the stairs stood not a door but an archway, carved to look like two tree trunks, branches intertwining at the top. Down here there was a soft glow, and Obi-Wan let fade the light he’d been generating. The new light streamed out of the archway in a soft wash of illumination, like a gentle sunlight. Obi-Wan had never been here before—no padawans or initiates were allowed into the Sanctum, only Knights-Elect and those of higher rank—and didn’t know what to expect. The light seemed almost warm, and drew him through the archway like a magnet. Once inside, he stopped and felt his jaw loosen in amazement.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, when he could stop gaping. The echo reverberated just as softly, then died away.

The ceiling, painted in some indescribable blue almost the color of Qui-Gon’s eyes, was far enough away to feel like the sky it mimicked. It was supported by six tremendous pillars, carved, like those of the archway, to resemble trees. Their branches, heavy with leaves, spread across the ceiling, seeming to reach into that twilight sky where a few stars winked and sparkled between them, impossibly. Water trickled somewhere nearby, and the floor, equally impossibly, was a soft forest loam. Was he truly down far enough that this could be a remnant of Coruscant’s true surface? Or was it another illusion, like the sky? And was that truly an illusion?

He walked to one gigantic pillar and ran his hand over the surface. The carving so skillfully resembled rough bark that he half imagined he’d caught a splinter from it. Big enough around that it could only be encircled by two dozen or more people holding hands, it supported a ceiling that must, he thought, reach to the lowermost level of the current temple, where the Kirtan had ushered him through the doors.

It even smelled like outside.

The light was turning a golden red now, as though it were sunset, as it must be in the world above. Obi-Wan forced himself to look away from the pillar and examine the rest of his surroundings. There was not much else to be seen. The walls were either holograms of more forest, or so skillfully painted and lit that they looked like the real thing. In the center of the “grove” was some kind of circular cairn made of stone, its outlined blurred with moss and softly worn. Beside it was a low wooden bench that looked much used, and a large craggy boulder patchworked with lichen.

He’d never felt such a tremendous sense of peace and well-being anywhere before. The Force seemed to fill the whole space as much as the air and light did. Obi-Wan felt as if he were breathing it in, taking it in through his skin. He could feel subtle currents passing through him, sense time moving around him—and flickering just outside his perceptions, the sense of something deeply important and profound.

Obviously, this was a place of meditation, much like the other gardens in the Temple above, but he had never felt so at peace in any of them. He wondered what the cairn was, if it could be the source of the tranquility he felt, and walked over to it to see what might be revealed.

With a radius of less than a meter, it was neither a large nor tall structure, the top of it hitting him mid-thigh. It was, however, quite hollow, not a cairn at all, but a well. He leaned over and looked into the blackness, heard more water trickling, and had the sense of great depth below him . . . and was suddenly struck by a nauseating dizziness. He clutched the sides of the well, feeling himself slipping, toppling into that depth . . .

He fell for a long time, and when he stopped falling, it was not because either water or ground or stone stopped him. He felt weightless, as though he were hovering. The dizziness and nausea were gone now, but he was blind. There was no sign of the opening through which he had fallen, if he truly had, not a glimmer of light—

 

> —Then, of a sudden, he was walking across a high dune somewhere, heat everywhere around, sucking the moisture from his body, and it was a struggle to get through the shifting sand. His knees and hips were stiff and painful, his balance off, his body somehow different. At the same time, he seemed to be outside himself, watching this figure wading clumsily over the top of the dune, arms waving, robes flapping, an amazing noise erupting from him, and . . . he was old. White-haired, creased and weathered, thick around the middle, in robes that looked vaguely Jedi-like but weren’t, lightsaber nowhere to be seen. And he was alone. He knew this somehow, that Qui-Gon was long dead, and Bruck too, because it weighed on his heart like a stone. But there was a more profound sense of loss underneath it, an older sorrow so deep it was inexpressible. . . . Sitting in Amidala’s apartments on Coruscant in civilian clothing, yet another ache in his heart. “I’m so sorry, Obi-Wan. I’m so sorry,” she whispered, horrified, tears in her own eyes, her sympathy and empathy enough to break him. She gathered him in, held him tightly. Another time he would have felt huge and clumsy in her embrace, but there was a real strength in her fine-boned body that he needed now because Qui was unreachable and Bruck was gone, one with the Force. She kissed him gently, his forehead, his wet eyelids, his cheek, his mouth . . . He stood on a listing landing pad high above Coruscant’s surface, barren site of the Temple below him, shaking with rage and grief. The hole was large and deep enough to conceal one of the tallest towers, as though the ancient and enormous structure had been simply vaporized where it stood. It was an almost surgical excision, very little around it suffering any damage but carbon scoring, and the result almost too terrible to truly grasp, though the instantaneous deaths had clutched at him, rocked, him, impaled him in a microsecond of unbearable agony. Half their number gone in less time than it took to draw a breath. Council members, friends, strangers, family. Ti, Reeft, Bant. Unthinkable. Unimaginable. But there was no time even to grieve. He had to go before they found him and added his name to the list of martyrs. . . . Anakin, grown now, a tall, lithe young man, handsome, with the same ready smile, Qui-Gon standing with one hand on his shoulder, looking at him with pride and fondness. A shadowy, insubstantial figure beside him, taller than both, in black armor and a flowing cape, shielded eyes glowing red, a—no. No. Qui-Gon’s lightsaber at its belt. . . . He knelt beside a young man, unconscious in the sand. _So few of us left,_ he heard himself think _and this one our only hope._ The boy was blond, very young—barely a man—with a disturbing familiarity to his features. Obi-Wan stared at the cleft chin, the sandy hair, the compact, rangy body on the boy and thought _he could be my son. . . ._ A battle raged around his small assault ship, blossoms of light expanding around him and silently marking the deaths of friends and enemies, distractions for the mission he and the two people with him were carrying out. In the installation below were cloning labs and—something else that made his skin crawl. . . . He stood in the sterile hallway of some military installation, an old man again, the black-armored figure stalking him, lightsaber raised. _When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master._ said the creature that had been Anakin. Their blades engaged, red on blue and it was indeed all he could do to hold the Sith Lord off. He was sadly out of practice, and old and tired. It was only a matter of time. From the corner of his eye he saw Solo, the Princess, and young Luke approaching the Corellian’s ship, and felt a sudden peace and rightness fill him. . . . Two figures in semi-darkness, a small stone room, one holding the other against his chest so gently, urging him to drink, the other, body taut with pain, waving it away. Long silver hair caught what little light there was, gleamed a moment, faded into shadow. _Tell him, Bruck,_ in a thick, wet gasp. _—didn’t, last . . . time._ The other, short white hair shining in the gloom, nodding, face set in a mask of grief, _I will. I promise, Qui-Gon. I promise. Don’t worry about the Temple. I’ll—_ A sigh, _—left in—good—hands,_ leaving behind in Bruck’s grasp nothing but an old cloak and bloodied clothing.


	3. Vocation

 

Obi-Wan came to on his face beside the well, in light much like early dawn, literally prostrate with grief. Qui, Bruck, Ti, Bant, Reeft, everyone he loved, his fellow Jedi. Was he destined to lose everyone? Would they leave him behind, exiled and alone in that waste he knew was Tatooine? Was that what the Force had in store for him? Could he bear it? He remembered the face of the man walking over the dune, the expression he wore confronting Anakin’s ghoul: serene, at peace, eyes sparkling with a not-so-subtle joy, and not a little mischief. Did he really have that in him?

He had fought and killed a Sith Lord. He had brought Qui-Gon back from the dead, and kept him alive. He was 25—a child. And he was the 90th son to bear the name of Obi-Wan Kenobi, seer, mystic, scholar, warrior, Jedi martyr, hero.

Obi-Wan sat up and wiped sweat and tears from his face. Bits of forest litter, fragments of leaves, tiny clumps of moss, and ancient, sleeping seeds clung to his whites—reminders that this had been a living place under open air in the distant past. Everything changes, he thought. Forests grow and die, rivers change their courses and dry up, civilizations rise and fall. The age he lived in was decadent and corrupt. Everyone knew it. You could see it in the selfish bickering and machinations in the Senate. You could see it in the hidebound nature of the Council. You could see it in the unchecked spread of crime and corruption and slavery through the Rim Worlds. The Republic was old and doddering, the Jedi stultifying under their own Code. Perhaps it was time for a burn-off, and part of his duty was to make sure the Jedi survived it. It still seemed unbearable.

He thought again of the blond young man— _our only hope_ —in Tatooine’s wastes. _Luke. His name is Luke. He looks like me._

He remembered the new vision of Qui’s death—not the burning pyre that had haunted him until recently, but the cold stone room, where Bruck held him. His master had been old, Bruck at least middle-aged, and yet he had been young himself, mourning Bruck in Padme Naberrie’s arms.

Idiot. Moron.

Possibilities. It was all possibilities. Qui had told him he need only fear what he brought with him. He hadn’t brought a weapon, but his deepest fears and talent for prescience—which seemed to run in the family—had been impossible to leave behind. There was no way to know what was true, what was merely one of many permutations of the future. It was a slim hope, but one he clung to fiercely. Nothing was certain, but all could be taken as a warning.

Or a gift.

When his talent had first started to manifest itself, Qui-Gon had sent him to Yoda for more training. The first thing the powerful little Jedi master had taught him was not to try to control the future, but to accept each vision for what it was—a glimpse through a window. Using it as anything more would change the very nature of what had been seen, an endless and chaotic process with no end to it, once begun. The only change he could effect with any certainty was on himself. So, if there was fire coming, he would face it, and he would do his best to shield the ones he loved—and save the Order he served.

A soft hissing behind him distracted Obi-Wan and he turned to see his master stepping from the lift concealed in one of the pillars, looking somber. _I must have been broadcasting,_ he thought. _Probably to the whole Temple._ It seemed far too short a time had passed for Qui-Gon to be coming for him. Surely it couldn’t be dawn already. A moment of panic struck him that he had failed some obscure and secret test, and would not be knighted after all.

Qui-Gon stopped a little way from him, searching his face, then reached out to cup his cheek.

“It was hard, I see. I thought it might be,” he said gently. Obi-Wan only felt more confused, and it must have showed on his face, because Qui-Gon smiled a little sadly and stroked his cheek. “You carry so much with you, Obi-Wan. . . . It’s a terrible burden, to see the future as you do. I thought it might make your vigil something more than the peaceful contemplation it usually is. I see I was right. I—” he began and then stopped abruptly.

“My Master?” Obi-Wan prompted after a moment of Qui-Gon’s silence and somber looks.

Qui-Gon shook his head ruefully. “It’s not my place to wish anything but what is, even for you.” His thumb softly stroked Obi-Wan’s cheekbone, then he stepped back and tenderly brushed the debris from his former padawan’s whites before holding open the white cloak. “Come break your fast and rest a little, love. It’s several hours yet until the ceremony.”

 

* * *

 

Half the day later, dressed in his best blacks and the white cloak, Obi-Wan took the ceremonial knife from Master Koon and turned from the Council to his master with a poise that wavered momentarily as they met each other’s gaze. It lasted only a moment, but the outside world narrowed to encompass only his master’s face.

They had ridden the lift from the Sanctum in silence, Obi-Wan still reeling with all he’d experienced in his vigil. He absent-mindedly gathered his lightsaber from the Kirtan at the top, but before he could turn to go, the old man touched his sleeve and Obi-Wan stopped in the act of turning away.

“When you are ready to ask the questions, I am here,” was all the man said, eyes twinkling.

“How—I—Thank you,” he stammered, wondering how much he knew of what had gone on in his realm. Everything, Obi-Wan suspected. The old man bowed stiffly over his cane, as though to an equal, Obi-Wan returning it like a subordinate, and he and Qui-Gon walked silently toward the bank of lifts near the East Gate. He was tempted to pull his hood around him again, but Qui had come with no cloak at all, so it would have been rude. But finally, when they were nearly to the lifts that would take them home, Obi-Wan stopped.

“What was it like for you?” he said, not sure he wanted to know.

“Different enough that it would do little to illuminate your own, were I to describe it.”

He had suspected as much, but was still disappointed somehow. He nodded, turning away, and called the lift.

Only to find Qui-Gon moving up behind him, sliding his arms around his waist, and pulling him back against his chest. “Always in motion is the future, my love,” Qui-Gon murmured in his ear. “Live in the moment. That is all we ever have. The future will take care of itself.”

Obi-Wan leaned against him, feeling very tired suddenly and grateful for what could have been trite aphorisms if Qui-Gon didn’t so deeply believe them himself. “Don’t let me forget that,” he whispered.

They’d returned to their quarters, where breakfast was already waiting—and Anakin, bouncing in his seat. It was impossible, now, not to look at him and see that black-armored monster—but it was also deeply unfair, and Obi-Wan did his best to banish the image. It would take some doing, and more fortitude than he had at the moment. But he would do it, at least enough to give Anakin a fair, fighting chance to prove him wrong. After eating, Obi-Wan took a short, very hot shower and crawled into their bed for a few hours rest, feeling leaden and a little sick. For some time, he could not shut his thoughts off, no matter what relaxation techniques he used, and it was some time before he dozed off again. Qui-Gon let him sleep until there was only an hour before the final early evening ceremony, and he was grateful for it. He woke feeling more refreshed than sleeping most of the day away should have left him, if not yet entirely reconciled to his experiences.

Now, Obi-Wan knelt before Qui-Gon on both knees—the last time his status as an apprentice required him to do so—and held the small, sickle-shaped blade out to him on both palms. “My Master,” he began, voice clear and strong and full of reverence, love, and a solemn happiness, “With the Council’s approval and by the will of the Force, I ask you to release me from my padawan oaths to you that I may take my place as Jedi Knight.”

Qui-Gon took the knife from his apprentice’s hands and waited for Obi-Wan to lower his head before reaching down to his braid and running it through his fingers with obvious fondness, before twining it one last time around them and cutting it next to his former padawan’s skull. “Your padawan oaths to me are fulfilled, Ben-Zhao Lars of House Kenobi. I release you.” He touched the young knight’s shoulder and Obi-Wan raised his head again. “You have proven yourself in a trial none has undergone in centuries. Rise, Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

It was a moment Obi-Wan had been looking forward to all his life and yet he felt strangely empty as he got to his feet. After his night in the Sanctum, the ceremony itself felt terribly anticlimactic, the ritual banal, the words nearly meaningless, as though he had already passed through the real ceremony and all this was merely formality. But Qui-Gon’s eyes were shining with pride and love and he pushed the feeling away, forcing a smile. He stepped back and made a deep bow, first to the Council and then to Qui-Gon. “Thank you, My Masters,” he said solemnly.

Characteristically, it was Bruck who precipitated the change in mood by whooping loudly from somewhere in the middle of the small crowd that included his family. As though that had been a prearranged signal, Obi-Wan found himself suddenly swarmed by his friends and relatives, who pounded him on the back, shook his hand, hugged him, ruffled his hair, and babbled congratulations at him from all sides. In their joy, he found some of his own, enough to fill some of the hollowness, if not entirely dispel it. He let their excitement and pleasure fill him, basking there as though it were sunlight, and allowed them to drag him off to the site of the party they had been planning since the news had first broken.


	4. Valedictory

Later, he had to admit that it was a good party. An excellent party, in fact. A party to be crashed by every senior padawan in the Temple, it seemed, with a surfeit of food, music, intoxicants, and a guest list consisting of everyone he knew who was actually in temple, from his closest friends to the vaguest of acquaintances. The exception to this was Garen, who had distanced himself from Obi-Wan when it became clear his relationship with Bruck was a permanent one. The absence of one of his oldest friends and yearmates lent a slight sour note to the proceedings, but Obi-Wan had accepted it as Garen’s choice and let it go some time ago, so it was a muted and fleeting pang. It was offset too, but the presences of his brother and future sister-in-law, and his parents.

Qui-Gon and his friends made a brief showing, staying long enough to sample the fare and congratulate Obi-Wan, then leaving the business of serious celebration to the young knight and his friends. Qui-Gon leaned down and kissed him before departing, not lingering, but with a new casual openness he found thrilling. “Enjoy yourself, love. I won’t wait up, but I’ll be . . . waiting.”

“Oh gods, yes,” Obi-Wan breathed, kissing him back soundly. Qui-Gon smiled, reached to tug Obi-Wan’s missing braid, and laughing at himself, ruffled his brushcut instead, making them both grin, and left, Anakin trailing behind him like a good—if slightly mystified—padawan.

The party, which had begun in the early evening, stretched on into the small hours. Obi-Wan saw people he hadn’t seen in years; every padawan—and people from his university classes—that he’d ever known seem to appear at some point, and after a while, the things he’d seen in his vigil began to recede somewhat and at least some part of him began to enjoy the party. He danced, with Bruck, Isa Kassir, Beru, and others, nearly everyone in the room, it seemed afterwards; sampled the finger food, much of it his favorites, letting Ti and Bant, who’d arranged for it and in some cases made it, feed him choice tidbits by hand, Reeft looking on longingly; let himself get giddy on the haze of inhalants; let someone, anyone, everyone refill his glass endlessly as they swapped stories, danced, laughed, joked, teased, talked of their masters and missions, classes, exams, what it would be like when they were knights themselves.

No one spoke of either trials or vigils, and Obi-Wan said nothing of his. But he found himself watching Bruck through the evening, the memory of that grief in his heart. He’d catch himself laughing with someone, thinking _he’ll be dead when the Temple goes,_ and when it was Bant or Siri, having to excuse himself for a moment to swallow heavily and blink back the pain. More than once, someone asked him if he were all right. “Yes, of course. Just too much at once,” he’d mumble, waving whatever was in his hand at the time.

Finally, he took himself out on the balcony and leaned against the wall, watching the traffic thinning as the night did, trying to hold on to the pleasure and satisfaction he was feeling, trying not to think of what he’d seen, to shut it out of his mind until the time came to deal with it. What else could he do? There was no context for any of it, no way to know specifically when any of it would happen, or even if it would, no way to know if something he might or might not do now or in the next minute or the next day or year might precipitate it all. Better to let it go. Let the future look after itself, as Qui said. He wasn’t wise enough to cope with it except as it happened, and it frightened him. Let it go.

After some minutes of fruitless effort, he heard a blast of noise and music as the balcony door opened, suddenly muted as it shut again.

“Hey, Kenobi. There’s a party for you in there,” Bruck said, bumping him gently with one hip.

“I just needed some air,” he said quietly, without turning around.

“What’s with the long face?”

“I wasn’t aware I had one. Sorry. It’s been a great party,” he replied, mustering a genuine grin.

“It’s your vigil, isn’t it?” Bruck frowned. “Qui-Gon said he thought it might be hard. What happened? You see something?”

Obi-Wan shook his head, chagrined. This was a consequence of having two lovers that he hadn’t anticipated: that they would share information about him, warn each other, conspire against him for his own good.

“What was it? You’ve been too damn quiet, even for you.”

“A lot of things,” he said softly. “None of them may ever happen. I hope they don’t. And I wish I hadn’t seen any of it.”

“I don’t know,” Bruck grinned, half flippant, half serious, “Sometimes it’s better to be prepared for the shock, don’t you think?”

He hadn’t thought of that. He’d only thought of _changing_ what he’d seen. He nudged Bruck, settled against him companionably. “You’re smarter than you act, you know that?”

“Than I look, too.” One of Bruck’s arms slid around him, the tips of his fingers resting inside the waistband of his blacks. “Was I somewhere in that future?”

“Yes. Oh yes,” Obi-Wan said quietly, turning in Bruck’s arms and holding him tightly. “And that’s one thing I’m going to try to keep that way.”


End file.
